§ On the Motion that the House, at its rising, adjourn to Monday,
§ MR. HILDYARDsaid, that, pursuant to notice, he would beg to call attention to the case of Susannah Evans, a girl of sixteen years of ago, who was inveigled away by a Belgian procuress, and conveyed, with some others, to Hamburg for the purpose of prostitution. Colonel Hodges, the British Consul, had stated that there was a systematic business carried on in that city of importing young girls from this country for immoral purposes, and that he was powerless, without the intervention of his Government, in interposing any obstacle to the practice. He (Mr. Hildyard) was aware that the subject was surrounded with peculiar difficulties, and his object in drawing attention to it was not to embarrass, but rather to aid, the Government in efforts which he was sure they were anxious to make to put a stop to so revolting a traffic. It appeared that the municipal authorities of Hamburg had taken prostitution under their especial control, and derived no inconsiderable revenue from it, it being the practice to compel every unhappy being who entered upon that wretched calling to pay to the municipality of that city a sum equivalent, in British money, to £7 10s. a year. On this proceeding he would not animadvert further than to say that if a State thought proper to take so abominable a traffic under its supervision, and to levy a tax from such a source, other Governments had a right to demand that such police regulations should be adopted as would secure the impossibility of a young and innocent foreigner, such as this girl appeared to be, being consigned, against her will, to the miserable and degrading position to which the wretches who had attempted to decoy her desired that she should be reduced. He was informed that the woman who decoyed her away was known to the captain of the steamer in which the girls were taken to Hamburg, and also to the police of this country; and he was sure, now that the question had been brought to the notice of the right hon. Baronet, that he would take steps to ascertain whether the law could not be put in force in some way or other to impede and obstruct, if not altogether to put an end to, a traffic so disgraceful to 470 any Christian country. The question he had to ask the right hon. Baronet was, whether the attention of the Government had been directed to the case of Susannah Evans, a girl of sixteen years of age, conveyed to Hamburg for the purpose of prostitution; and whether, in consequence of the disclosures elicited in the investigation of that case before Sir Robert Carden, any correspondence had taken place between the Foreign Secretary and Colonel Hodges, the British Consul at Hamburg?
§ SIR GEORGE GREYSir, Her Majesty's Government have, as a matter of course, had their attention directed to the case to which the hon. and learned Gentleman's question refers, by the publicity given to the circumstances attending it in the proceedings at the City Police Courts. A despatch has also been received from Colonel Hodges, the British Consul at Hamburg, addressed to my noble Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, giving an account of the case in question, and other similar cases, which have come under his notice; and, from his statement, it appears that an extensive traffic is now going on between the ports of London and Hull and the port of Hamburg in this way. Colonel Hodges' letter to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs was transmitted to me, in order that an investigation might be instituted into the matter, and I have accordingly placed myself in communication with the Mayors of Liverpool and Hull, the Lord Mayor of London, and the chief officers of the metropolitan police, directing them to take measures which will, I hope, obstruct, if not altogether prevent, the disreputable traffic.